Formerly, PGV-1 has been shown anti-tumorigenic activities against leukemia and breast cancer in xenograft mice model [6, 7], but has not been explored in colorectal cancer. While the other curcumin analogs, pentagamavunone-0 (PGV-0), gamavutone-0 (GVT-0), and hexagamavunone-0 (HGV-0), exhibited anti-inflammatory activity in the DMH-colorectal cancer rat model [12]. In this regard, we challenge and continue to explore PGV-1 and CCA-1.1, a targeted and selective candidate for colorectal cancer chemotherapeutic agents through in vitro, in vivo, and bioinformatic exploration.
In the in vitro study, we confirm that CCA-1.1 was more potent than PGV-1 and underlined with a superior safety level. Caco-2 and CT-26 colorectal cancer cells represent the COX-2 level in colorectal cancer since there was fluctuate expression of COX-2 in COAD patients [22, 23]. The different characteristics of the two cells that we used provide different responses for each cell. We found compelling evidence that PGV-1 cellular response, in this case, cytotoxic activity, might be altered by COX-2 expression. Further confirmation on the selectivity index of CCA-1.1 and PGV-1 indicate that both compounds are promising candidates of selective anticancer agents. It was also confirmed by the WBC and RBC level in the in vivo experiment that PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 might defeat tumor formation with fewer or no observable opposing effects on the normal lineage of cells. The RBC and WBC profiles could explain a slight pathological condition of colorectal cancer, such as anemia, cruor, and inflammation [1, 24]. The safety properties of CCA-1.1 and PGV-1 are important to develop new anticancer agents. However, this study is still limited in the normal proliferating immortal cells that should be evaluated in the normal primary cells as well as in the in vivo model.
We performed the chemopreventive examination of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 that simultaneously administered with DMH for inducing colorectal cancer, whether they were able to reverse, suppress, or prevent the initial phases of DMH carcinogenesis. We believed that the study of in vivo colorectal carcinogenesis had a remarkably long journal accompanying the development of diagnostic, pathway mechanism, and therapy of cancer [25]. For the inducing agent, we used DMH as a procarcinogen that metabolizes to a methyl free radical and generates hydroxyl radicals of metal ions resulting in lipid peroxidation, molecular genetic alteration, and cancer initiation [26]. We found that co-administration of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 in both doses (10; 20 mg/kg) with DMH were adequate to suppress tumor growth with noticeable toxic effects to the normal lineage cells caused by DMH, particularly CCA-1.1 at 20 mg/kg. The mechanism may, in part concern with the in vitro anticancer activities of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1, including induction of apoptosis, targeted cell cycle arrest, related cancer marker protein inhibition, and selective on cancer cells [7, 8]. Then, PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 may play a role as free radical eliminators through enzymatic antioxidants since curcumin analogs are known as dual-oxidant on their anticancer features [27]. This phenomenon should be an exciting point to further exploration related to their antioxidant activities.
Bioinformatic exploration was confirmed that CCA-1.1 was more potent than PGV-1. The proteins target candidate of CCA-1.1 in COAD was richer than PGV-1, validating previous in vitro observation of CCA-1.1 that report several activities such as apoptosis, anti-migration/ metastasis, and specific G2/M cell cycle arrest [11, 28–32]. We underlined the two proteins CDK1 and CDK2, which play a specific role in the G1/S and G2/M cell cycle stage, respectively [33]. Those two proteins might become an essential protein in the anticancer effect of CCA-1.1 in the field of cell proliferation and cell cycle regulation on colorectal cancer. On the other hand, targeting MMP3 and MMP14 [34] might also underline the better effect on anti-migration of CCA-1.1 than PGV-1. CCA-1.1 targets CYP3A4 should be highlighted as superior to PGV-1. By targeting this protein, CCA-1.1 possibly suppressed or inhibited DMH-carcinogenesis since DMH is mainly metabolized into toxic metabolites by CYPs in the liver, including CYP3A4 [20, 21]. We believed that this finding could emphasize the superiority of CCA-1.1 compared to PGV-1 to develop as a colorectal cancer chemotherapeutic candidate. An additional laboratory experiment is required for a better and detailed comprehension of the mechanism.
Since we used the DMH-induced colorectal cancer model, we could also observe an early pre-neoplastic hyperproliferative lesion that formed aberrant crypt foci (ACF) as intermediary indicators of carcinogenesis [35]. Here, we focused on the late and early stages of colorectal carcinogenesis to define the effect of suppression or inhibition of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1. We found that single DMH induced late stage of colorectal cancer, which is adenocarcinoma with severe alteration of goblet cell’s structure, inflammation, and invasive growth of cancer cells. However, co-administration of DMH with PGV-1/ CCA-1.1 induced an early stage of colorectal carcinogenesis, such as aberrant crypt [36] and colitis-associated colorectal cancer (severe inflammation and hemorrhagic) [37], without adenocarcinoma formation, especially CCA-1.1 at both doses. These findings indicated that PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 could suppress or inhibit the carcinogenesis of DMH in rats. It should also be superior to a new anti-colorectal cancer due to its solubility, stability, and effectiveness, especially in an acidic environment since both compounds were administered orally to rats. However, several conventional chemotherapeutic drugs are still limited for oral use due to their stability in the alimentary tract [38–40]. In this study, we used a chemopreventive setting on the treatment schedule, in which DMH was co-administered with PGV-1/ CCA-1.1 at the same period. Further exploration using another treatment design would be great to establish the detailed mechanism of those compounds and the possibility to pharmaceutically developed as orally administered drugs for colorectal cancer.
To our knowledge, it is the first time that in vivo exploration of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 against colorectal cancer has been conducted along with in vitro and bioinformatic exploration. These findings revealed a great potential of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 to develop as anti-colorectal cancer agents. However, the optimum dose to give as well as the treatment setting may not be answered yet. A deeper investigation is needed to settle down the potency of PGV-1 and CCA-1.1 as anti-colorectal cancer agents.